Freedom and Constraints in the K3 Landscape

Abstract

We consider "magnetized brane" compactifications of the type I/heterotic string on K3 with U(1) background fluxes. The nonabelian gauge group and matter content of the resulting six-dimensional vacua are parameterized by a matrix encoding a lattice contained within the even, self-dual lattice Gamma^{3,19}. Mathematical results of Nikulin on lattice embeddings make possible a simple classification of such solutions. This approach makes it possible to explicitly and efficiently construct models in this class with a particular allowed gauge group and matter content, so that one can immediately "dial-a-model" with desired properties.

v4: fixed factor of two in tadpole, included effect of Freed-Witten anomaly; general characterization of results relatively unchanged but results of some computations corrected substantially